Profiles

Connecting med students in Windsor and London



A new, state-of-the-art Medical Education Building was built on the University of Windsor campus to house the Windsor-based branch of the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry program. Able to accommodate up to 200 medical students, the facility boasts two 50-seat lecture rooms equipped with high-definition videoconferencing (VC) technology, and a virtual anatomy lab where the students will study and manipulate three-dimensional anatomical images using a computer.

ORION, together with advanced regional networks LARG*net (London region) and WEDnet (Windsor-Essex region), built a dedicated VC network between the University of Western Ontario, the University of Windsor, and London and Windsor teaching hospitals using a Layer 2 connection that runs on ORION between London and Windsor. The speed and reliability of ORION has enabled fully-functional high-definition VC with push-to-talk individual microphone setups in each of the London and Windsor teaching rooms.

So far, the reliability of ORION has ensured the school's ability to teach interactively for three to four hours a day without interruption - something that would have been much less likely with "traditional" VC using internet, ISDN and bridge connectivity, according to Dr. Peter Flanagan, Director of Faculty E-Learning at Schulich. "Our use of ORION has made the vision of highly-interactive distributed medical education in Southern Ontario a reality," says Dr. Flanagan.

ORION and ABEL link high school students to interactive author session



ORION and York University's Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) Program teamed up to co-host a live, interactive event featuring celebrated Canadian author, Lawrence Hill, who engaged with students, both in person and online, on his latest award-winning novel, The Book of Negroes. The live reading and interactive session was linked by videoconference over the ORION network to three Ontario schools, allowing students at those remote locations to interact and participate in the discussion in real time. Pre- and post-event activities - including a blog where Hill answered students' questions after the event - were tied into the curriculum, providing a more enriched experience for students.

ORION supports large data transfers, storage at UHN

ORION supports the work of researchers at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, enabling dramatic improvements in connectivity and access to new tools and resources, and opening the doors to enhanced participation in medical research collaborations and trials. Connecting to ORION over GTAnet, UHN is a data-centric organization where researchers accumulate half a terabyte of new information each week. This amount is steadily increasing, driving up competition for bandwidth. Thus, it is easy to see why ORION is actively promoted internally to address researchers' need for large database storage. "The previous technology that handled the day-to-day business of UHN did not work at all well until ORION came on stream, connecting the 10,000-plus staff, medical researchers and trainees competing for bandwidth," says UHN's Director of Research Information, Thomas Goldthorpe.

Algoma U offers first Canadian MSc program in computer gaming



Hooking up to ORION has enabled Algoma University to become the exclusive North American host site of an internationally renowned Master's program in computer gaming. The collaborative program sees Algoma U students in Sault Ste. Marie participate remotely in classes taking place in Scotland over an advanced videoconferencing system supported by connections over ORION, CANARIE and JANET. Lectures and instruction are mainly provided interactively by the professors at the University of Abertay Dundee (UAD) in Scotland over videoconference. "We have been impressed by the high quality of the videoconference connections to Scotland over the R&E networks, including ORION," said Danny Reid, Divisional Director of Information Technology Services at Algoma U and coordinator of the program. "There haven't been any breaks or disruptions ... It's as though we're interacting with people who are in the classroom next door."